There's more talent in the schnit streaks Radiohead leaves in the toilet than Lily Allen possesses in her entire teenybopper frame.

To think, I found that dumb coont attractive at one point

You know, I like her albums, I like her biatch attitude, and I would WRECK that, but....

She can start talking with the big kids when she's been playing with them as long as Radiohead and Pink Floyd have.

"nothing but puppets paid for by Simon Cowell"

(turn on radio)

...She DOES kind of have a point there

FTFA: "When you manage to get a contract, all those pretty videos and posters advertising your album have to be paid for and, as the artist, you have to pay for them."

Yeah, those are expensive. Time consuming, as well. Hours and hours of film to review and edit down. Then comes the digital effects. Publishing costs, there's those, too. Many man hours placed into just getting their face out into the world. Networking all parties involved so the machine can make sure that Lily Allen is on the public's mind 24/7.

Somewhere, in there, is three and a half minutes of music.

I think Radiohead just saw the writing on the wall. It's not their fault that they built their success before the days of downloadable pirated music. They just saw what was coming and decided to embrace it rather than fight it.

This means you can't make money off album sales like you used to, but that's going to go pretty much across the board. The album is dead. Music video television is dead. You make your money doing shows.

You build a name for yourself via releasing your songs and making your music available. Don't blame Radiohead for this. They didn't do it. They were just ahead of the curve.

The old ways of marketing and selling music are dying out. The album itself is becoming obsolete. Are you going to embrace the new changes or are you going to fight them?

Lily Allen has to keep running her trap b/c no one's buying her music.

/not a Radiohead fan

This just in: Semi-affordable gear and software DAWs have made music more alive than ever before, and digital distribution is the end of large companies force-feeding us dreck while we're unaware of so much un-hyped talent. The age of mega-star is waning, yielding to far, far more artists experience modest success (mostly via touring) vs. very, very few achieving traditional fame.

Suck it.

If she makes a dime off her CD sales, she's an exception.

Get out there and tour like everyone else, ya skanky ho.

The Fear singer is incensed...

When you're known by a single song you sing, that's your problem.

...but some really rich talented and successful artists like Nick Mason from Pink Floyd and Ed O'Brien from Radiohead don't seem to think so.

FTFH.

Sounds like she's being taken over by fear.

They do sell-out arena tours and have the biggest Ferrari collections in the world.

Really? A bit of a broad generalization there, don't you think? I wasn't aware that Pink Floyd even toured anymore.

And on MySpace? Really? Do people still use that crap?

Hey Lily, once you've been around for few a DECADES (especially in Pink Floyd's case) and have become one of the most influencial artists ever, then you can talk that kind of shiat. The real money is made in touring anyway; STFU and tour. Make songs that people care about listening to.

You don't start out in music with the Ferraris. Instead you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your a*** off to repay.


Yeah, here's the farking thing: With digital distribution, you don't have to do that anymore.

IrateShadow: You don't start out in music with the Ferraris. Instead you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your a*** off to repay.


Yeah, here's the farking thing: With digital distribution, you don't have to do that anymore.

This.

In many ways, it's easier for an artist to get their music out nowadays. Anyone with a decent home computer and an internet connection can make and put out music. Recording software for PCs has come a long way in the past 10 years in both the quality of output and affordability.

Lily, I love your records, but you really shouldn't say things where people can hear you.

More proof that women should not be allowed to hold opinions.

BuckyFellini: IrateShadow: You don't start out in music with the Ferraris. Instead you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your a*** off to repay.


Yeah, here's the farking thing: With digital distribution, you don't have to do that anymore.

This.

In many ways, it's easier for an artist to get their music out nowadays. Anyone with a decent home computer and an internet connection can make and put out music. Recording software for PCs has come a long way in the past 10 years in both the quality of output and affordability.


...which means that there is so much crap out there from basement-dwelling "geniuses" that most people can't be bothered to take the time to find the good stuff buried in the sea of mediocrity.

"You don't start out in music with the Ferraris. Instead you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your a*** off to repay."

You're doing it wrong (and you're an idiot if you're doing it this way)! Suddenly I have the feeling that Lily was gang farked by Metallica and liked it.

Philbigtime: BuckyFellini: IrateShadow: You don't start out in music with the Ferraris. Instead you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your a*** off to repay.


Yeah, here's the farking thing: With digital distribution, you don't have to do that anymore.

This.

In many ways, it's easier for an artist to get their music out nowadays. Anyone with a decent home computer and an internet connection can make and put out music. Recording software for PCs has come a long way in the past 10 years in both the quality of output and affordability.


...which means that there is so much crap out there from basement-dwelling "geniuses" that most people can't be bothered to take the time to find the good stuff buried in the sea of mediocrity.


And those people that 'can't be bothered' will sit and wait for the radio stations and major labels to decide what to listen to for them. What kind of point are you trying to make? If you want to find good music, you have to look for it. That's never changed. There is more crap out there now, yes, but at the same time, finding the good stuff is easier than it ever was.

BuckyFellini: Philbigtime: BuckyFellini: IrateShadow: You don't start out in music with the Ferraris. Instead you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your a*** off to repay.


Yeah, here's the farking thing: With digital distribution, you don't have to do that anymore.

This.

In many ways, it's easier for an artist to get their music out nowadays. Anyone with a decent home computer and an internet connection can make and put out music. Recording software for PCs has come a long way in the past 10 years in both the quality of output and affordability.


...which means that there is so much crap out there from basement-dwelling "geniuses" that most people can't be bothered to take the time to find the good stuff buried in the sea of mediocrity.


And those people that 'can't be bothered' will sit and wait for the radio stations and major labels to decide what to listen to for them. What kind of point are you trying to make? If you want to find good music, you have to look for it. That's never changed. There is more crap out there now, yes, but at the same time, finding the good stuff is easier than it ever was.

This is the point where meme-theory/viral marketing takes hold; all it takes is five people to start telling their friends, who will tell five more... etc.

Just like a catchy song always comes back into your head and sticks with you, so will the music of good new artist.


/for a period of a few years I stopped actively seeking music; however I would poll my friends and see what they were gushing about. I still found things that were completely independent and still under the radar (and managed to find out about Dub Step despite not setting foot in a dance club for over 7 years)

Lily Allen is just afraid because downloading will be death of disposable crap like her.

We are a mere couple of years away from every band discovering the obvious: music distribution companies are no longer necessary.

Music is going to become a self-sustaining community. The big guys will elevate the little guys. Established acts will create their own labels and help the bands the open for them on tour to cut albums in their home studios that now contain the same state-of-the-art equipment as the labels' studios do.

Music will be free. Performances will not. And the band that performs gets to keep all of the money they make.

In fact, the exact opposite of what Lily Allen says will happen. Better bands that labels would have never given a chance will be heard. And manufactured crap will die a very fast death because there will be less money in manufactured pop stars.

StubePT: We are a mere couple of years away from every band discovering the obvious: music distribution companies are no longer necessary.

Music is going to become a self-sustaining community. (snip)

Music will be free. (snip)

In fact, the exact opposite of what Lily Allen says will happen. Better bands that labels would have never given a chance will be heard. (snip)

I generally agree with you, but I think that big bands will still moneytize their recorded music through value addition. Buy and download the tracks and we'll send you...something...

I remember when I bought DSOTM by Floyd in the 1970's. It had two posters and two stickers. The posters went up on my wall immediately, the stickers on my school notebook. The album itself was a work of art, and folded open to reveal the lyrics. It was as much a work of art as the music.

Today, CD's generally have none of that. The little booklet is too small to be effective at being an artwork unto itself, and things like stickers (which only promote the band in question) they are pretty much none-existent.

Same thing for Queen LP "Jazz." It had a really cool poster of the Fat Bottom Girls nekkid on their bicycles. You can see it here (slightly NSFW) but it too went up on the wall.

As Tom Petty said, record execs spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to charge for what they gave away for free.

What is her obsession with Ferrari's? I mean, is that what she is concerned about?

Oh, and BTW, if you want to get an even TINY glimpse of some of the shiat Radiohead had to go through when they were coming up, watch Meeting People is Easy...

Drunk Astronaut: Today, CD's generally have none of that. The little booklet is too small to be effective at being an artwork unto itself, and things like stickers (which only promote the band in question) they are pretty much none-existent.

I wouldn't go that far (though vinyl certainly has the better packaging size to contain posters. CDs don't do that nearly as well), but I would say the CD is a missed opportunity; which isn't really the fault of the medium itself.

If anything, the record labels should be looking at how well vinyl is doing and take cues. Though I do think some of vinyl's appeal is due to hipster bullshiat, vinyl releases now generally do give more incentive (for the above reasons) for the listener to actually purchase it.

read the book "Ripped" by Greg Cot. His arguments fly in the face of absolutely every word she just said. Statistically, the more of your music that is downloaded freely, the more inclined people will be to buy it legitimately. It's kind of like a drug dealer's business model: give them a taste and they'll want more. Of course, just like drugs, what you're selling better be good, else nobody will want any more.

She's selling soap flakes and oregano, which is why she's so afraid.

The formula is simple: Give your music away for free. More people will be exposed to it, therefore more people will pay to see you live. The problem exists when these no talent, auto tune hacks can't perform live...then they get all pissy and claim file sharing is hurting them.

Radiohead made millions on In Rainbows.

Lily Allen and other talentless hacks will of course make nothing.

File sharing makes it harder for bad acts or one hit wonders. It makes it easier for good acts or people with talent.

flogging_malarky: It's kind of like a drug dealer's business model: give them a taste and they'll want more. Of course, just like drugs, what you're selling better be good, else nobody will want any more.

She's selling soap flakes and oregano, which is why she's so afraid.

+1.

StubePT: Music is going to become a self-sustaining community. The big guys will elevate the little guys. Established acts will create their own labels and help the bands the open for them on tour to cut albums in their home studios that now contain the same state-of-the-art equipment as the labels' studios do.

Kind of like what rappers have been doing for 20 years?

Lily, stfu and get back to flashing your ass to the whole world.

Funny how Roger Waters, Thom Yorke, et al never needed to run around nude to sell records (thank god).

FeedTheCollapse: Drunk Astronaut: Today, CD's generally have none of that. The little booklet is too small to be effective at being an artwork unto itself, and things like stickers (which only promote the band in question) they are pretty much none-existent.

I wouldn't go that far (though vinyl certainly has the better packaging size to contain posters. CDs don't do that nearly as well), but I would say the CD is a missed opportunity; which isn't really the fault of the medium itself.

If anything, the record labels should be looking at how well vinyl is doing and take cues. Though I do think some of vinyl's appeal is due to hipster bullshiat, vinyl releases now generally do give more incentive (for the above reasons) for the listener to actually purchase it.

give me a break. vinyl sales may be up, but when you sell a few thousand copies a year and that "jumps" to a couple hundred more, you aren't "doing well", you are "catering to a SMALL niche".

Will?

Stay Cool Babylon: This just in: Semi-affordable gear and software DAWs have made music more alive than ever before, and digital distribution is the end of large companies force-feeding us dreck while we're unaware of so much un-hyped talent. The age of mega-star is waning, yielding to far, far more artists experience modest success (mostly via touring) vs. very, very few achieving traditional fame.


True, but there's a downside. The need to rely on touring for any sort of livable income means that fewer musicians than ever are actually able to do it for a living. If you can't tour because it's just not possible to quit your day job and go on the road, your musical project will likely remain small (and probably short-lived). If you're only playing local gigs, you're almost certainly not doing music for a living, at least pop/rock/etc...it's different for classical musicians. For all but a few "local legend" type bands, local gigs don't pay shiat. As in "this won't even cover gas to get to the gig" levels of not paying shiat.

Personally, I'd like to see more musicians be able to do it for a living, but that's probably not going to happen in the foreseeable future. As the music itself becomes less of a marketable commodity in and of itself (and instead becomes an incentive to go to a show and buy a t-shirt), it's not so much the tiny handful of mega-stars that will drop off the map, but the legions of potentially professional musicians who are forced to be amateurs simply because there's no viable business model for the majority of them. The ratio of local-gig-playing amateur musicians to touring pros is only going to get greater, now that music sales are spiraling into oblivion.

Is that okay? I dunno. People will still make music, even though they have very little hope of ever coming close to breaking even. I just can't help but feel that it might be better music, overall, if so many of the people making it weren't tied to a 9-to-5.

FWIW, I'm one of those DAW-using musicians, and I don't play live gigs at all. I'm looking to expand the project beyond being just me and do that...but I don't want to be one of those lame one-guy-and-a-laptop "bands." I sell some CDs and iTunes/Rhapsody/Amazon mp3 downloads from time to time...but my cat couldn't live on the income, to say nothing of me. *shrug* So it goes...

benlonghair: The Fear singer is incensed...



huh?

StubePT: Music is going to become a self-sustaining community. The big guys will elevate the little guys. Established acts will create their own labels and help the bands the open for them on tour to cut albums in their home studios that now contain the same state-of-the-art equipment as the labels' studios do.

What's missing here is that your small or home recording studio regardless of equipment doesn't have a big room with 25' ceilings to make the drums not sound like they were recorded in a crappy basement. I don't think Bonzo would have sounded the same recorded in mom's basement.

It's too bad that all that freely traded music killed the career of the Grateful Dead. I mean, had they not allowed trading, think of how many more albums they would have sold.

Wait a minute. In the same breath as bashing music sharer's she says that she has to pay record companies for her videos and the like, but it's the file sharers that are bad?

And how exactly does file sharing mean all the music will be produced by Simon Cowell? If anything, the current business model is supporting that.

If I download music and I like it, I go buy it from the legit source and pay the artist for their time. I don't have to listen to empty crap from vapid coonts nor do I have to pay for it.

No, ms. new musician with far less experience in the industry than the people you are criticizing, it's not file sharing that's hurting you, it's the immutable business plan of the industry that's doing it.

acronym: benlonghair: The Fear singer is incensed...



huh?

Lily Allen's alright, if you like saxophones...

And this is from a chick who the Gallagher brothers treat like their kid sister. Yeah, all three deserve each other.

benlonghair: It's too bad that all that freely traded music killed the career of the Grateful Dead. I mean, had they not allowed trading, think of how many more albums they would have sold.

oh come now. there is no real comparison to shiatty sounding fan recorded bootlegs being swapped around between a few hundred people (at most), and perfect digital copies of cd's being traded over the internet with millions of people.

buried_alive: The formula is simple: Give your music away for free. More people will be exposed to it, therefore more people will pay to see you live. The problem exists when these no talent, auto tune hacks can't perform live...then they get all pissy and claim file sharing is hurting them.

I'm still puzzling through what I think of the situation, but I've realized that the "give away the music/make money playing live" model is less than ideal.

Compare two tourings kids acts: Dora the Explorer and the Wiggles. Dora is just a person in a suit, and thus, you can have 20 different Dora shows (with 20 different people in 20 different suits) playing in 20 different venues every day, generating 20x revenue each day. By contrast, the Wiggles are four specific guys, and there can be only one Wiggles show going on at a time. And if the Wiggles get sick, or want to stay home for a kid's birthday, or just have burned out on touring, their income flow stops. With Dora, you just find another person to stick in the suit, and the revenue keeps coming.

The record industry used to be like Dora. Royalties from record sales produced a steady stream of income regardless of whether the particular artist played that day. This allowed artists to tour and then take a break, relax, work on new projects/songs, etc., and still be able to pay bills. But if you cut that revenue source out, the artist becomes like the Wiggles -- if you don't play today, you don't get paid. Until the artist gets to the point where the revenue from one show can pay the bills for a whole week, playing live is just the equivalent of a 5-day a week, 50-weeks a year day job. There's not a lot of room for creativity and exploration in a job like that, and the quality of the music will probably suffer.

Couple that with the points others have made about fragmentation of the audience leading to smaller -- and thus less profitable -- shows, and there's a reason to believe that the "make your money touring" model just isn't viable.

Uzzah: By contrast, the Wiggles are four specific guys, and there can be only one Wiggles show going on at a time.

There are two Trans-Siberian Orchestra tours going at any one time.

Alien Robot: Uzzah: By contrast, the Wiggles are four specific guys, and there can be only one Wiggles show going on at a time.

There are two Trans-Siberian Orchestra tours going at any one time.

No wonder they seem to be in my town every other month.

I'm sure they're good, but as far as combining rock with orchestras, black metal has it all over them.

Taking orchestras, adding rock musicians, and imposing a rock song structure (verse chorus verse chorus solo chorus out)on them = fail.

Taking a rock band, adding orchestras, and imposing classical structure (unique time signatures, evolving rather than repetitive song structure, and unusual chord usage) on them = win.

Orgasmatron138: Alien Robot: Uzzah: By contrast, the Wiggles are four specific guys, and there can be only one Wiggles show going on at a time.

There are two Trans-Siberian Orchestra tours going at any one time.

No wonder they seem to be in my town every other month.

I'm sure they're good, but as far as combining rock with orchestras, black metal has it all over them.

Taking orchestras, adding rock musicians, and imposing a rock song structure (verse chorus verse chorus solo chorus out)on them = fail.

Taking a rock band, adding orchestras, and imposing classical structure (unique time signatures, evolving rather than repetitive song structure, and unusual chord usage) on them = win.

so, how do you feel about Hollenthon?

mekkab: